The first people to eat takenoko, or young bamboo shoots, must have been really, really hungry. This special 150th episode of Boing Boing TV features tech entrepreneur Joi Ito wandering into his backyard in Japan to dig up the softball-size starts of the towering woody grass, then showing how to prepare...

Could native foods be the next big thing in eating? Some people, Gary Nabhan in particular, are working to push things in that direction. Nabhan, a noted conservation scientist at the Northern Arizona University, is a founder of the Renewing America's Food Traditions (RAFT) Alliance and may be the original...

Calling all Californian raw-milk drinkers: David Gumpert is chronicling all the latest twists and turns in the shady saga of AB1735, the handful of words that may have consigned raw milk to the compost pile in California. A raw-food advocate plans to file a court injunction and launch a class action suit....

This week was Noshette's birthday, and among the many things we did to celebrate was to have dinner at Les Jardins Sauvages, which in English means "the wild gardens", a woodland table restaurant in St.Roch de l'Achigan. (Since I no longer go by the name "Nosher", Noshette will now be...

Bonnie here: At the end of June I sent out a call for new Ethicurean contributors outside the U.S. coasts, and I'm pleased to say that at least three people have emailed me made it through our rigorous application process. Our latest writer, Jennifer, hails from the Midwest and is an avid cook and locavore....

...that I can hardly blog. I'm in Tunis, and I've finally yanked out the DSL plug fused directly into my brain, in order to enjoy the past few days of serious R&R, while Marc so ably keeps the Ethicurean home fires burning. (Pelosi, how could you?) I have so much to report about our trip to Holland, and...

FEATURES Best new coinage — "carbon foodprint"!: Zoe Bradley ruminates on the disconnect and guilt she feels putting a pineapple in her Portland shopping cart. She asks, "Why the reductionist, either/or mentality? Why not local and organic, and while we’re at it, grass fed, family scale, socially just,...

Our blogging e-pal Tana at I (Heart) Small Farms has the latest development in the face-off between Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini and the San Francisco Ferry Plaza farmers he dissed in his description of the market, its clientele, and their prices. Tana posts a conciliatory letter she received from Erica...

There are even more links worthy of inclusion today, but we ran out of time. Look for a follow-up Digest later tonight or tomorrow. NEWS Don't blame our few bad melamine-tainted apples: China has urged the United States not to take punitive action against its exporters of agricultural goods. The government...

In case you haven't been following the comments section of Mental Masala's and my post today about Slow Food leader Carlo Petrini's lecture in San Francisco, there's quite a kerfuffle over the part in his new book in which he visits San Francisco's Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. I was able to read the entire...

On May 10 Dairy Queen and I went to a lecture by Slow Food International founder Carlo Petrini, who's on the road to promote the English-language release of his book "Slow Food Nation." The book, which we have not yet read, is about the future of food, and what we must do to prevent disaster. Petrini will...

People who enjoy sausage and respect the law should not watch either being made. That curt assessment is usually attributed to 19th-century statesman Otto von Bismarck, and I can certainly agree with him about the second part. For example, it's hard to see how all the maneuvering and wheeling-and-dealing...